Sony has taken a major accounting hit on Bungie, recording ¥120.1 billion in impairment losses against the studio's intangible and other assets during FY25.
In Sony's latest financial results presentation, the company says the Bungie charge was split between ¥31.5 billion in Q2 and ¥88.6 billion in Q4, for a full-year total of ¥120.1 billion. The company attributes the loss to Bungie assets, but it does not break down how much was tied to Destiny 2, Marathon or other parts of Bungie's portfolio.
Sony CFO Lin Tao was blunt about why the write-down happened.
"In our studio business, earnings from Bungie's title portfolio did not reach our expectations, so we downwardly revised our business plan and impaired the full amount of the fixed assets related to Bungie except for goodwill."
That is a sharp turn for a studio Sony bought in 2022 for $3.6 billion, especially with Bungie now carrying both the long-running Destiny business and Marathon, its newer extraction shooter. Marathon launched in early March, putting it inside the same quarter that included the larger ¥88.6 billion charge.
Sony's investor remarks leave one important caveat open. The company discussed Bungie's portfolio as a whole, then spoke separately about Marathon's reception, but it did not assign the impairment loss to one game. That makes it unsafe to treat the full charge as either a Destiny 2 problem or a Marathon problem alone.
Sony still says Marathon is landing with players
Even with the impairment in the books, Sony did not describe Marathon as a write-off. Tao told investors that the game has an 82 Metacritic score and that more than 90% of its Steam player reviews are positive.
"Engagement metrics such as retention also remain at a high level."
Sony said it plans to improve Marathon's performance through additional content, gameplay improvements and a wider user base. That framing suggests Sony still sees a path for Bungie's shooter, even after lowering the business plan behind the studio's assets.
The Bungie charge also sits inside a PlayStation business that Sony says is still profitable at scale. Game & Network Services operating income rose 12% year over year to ¥463.3 billion in FY25, and Sony said the segment reached record operating income despite the Bungie impairment. The same earnings materials also showed Sony managing hardware pressure, including plans to pace PS5 sales around memory supply and pricing.
For Bungie, the harder point is not that Sony is walking away. It is that Sony has now publicly put a lower value on the fixed assets behind the studio's current plan, while telling investors those games have not earned what the company expected.